Among the dozens of craftsmen and women of Gibson Custom, each has their own area of expertise. Within each expertise, there are an incalculable number of individual techniques and tools that develop out of the person whose skill we rely on to craft the world’s finest guitars.

In today’s blog feature, we bring you a quick look at one example from our scraping department. In this week’s “15 Seconds or Less” video, Wanda makes removing lacquer from binding look as simple as peeling an apple, when in reality the margin for error is zero.

Without the decades of training and practice, not to mention the skill, removing micro-thin layers of nitrocellulose lacquer from binding while leaving it on the wood of the guitar would require a machine that the world has yet to invent. In fact, the tolerances are highly dependent on the individual personality of each guitar we make. For that reason, only human skill and patience can provide results within the standards of Gibson Custom. If ever you have the chance to come by and visit us personally, take the time to watch Wanda and her fellow craftsmen patiently remove exactly the right amount of lacquer from our binding using razor blades, shards of metal or whatever each of them has developed into their own personal tool of the trade. It’s literally mesmerizing to see the level of skill.